


Hunted

by S_A (magicom)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Demon Hunters, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2020-09-06 17:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20295454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicom/pseuds/S_A
Summary: Anathema Device hears some disturbing news from the world of humans who are interested in the occult and brings it to the beings who are about to be affected by it.





	1. The Messenger Comes

Aziraphale was sitting at his desk with a cup of cocoa, pouring over a delightful old book of completely bonkers ‘prophesies’ he’d just procured. It hadn’t even been in print for over a hundred years and it had been a long time since he’d seen one. When it came up for auction, he simply had to have it. It was in excellent condition and he turned the pages carefully. It had already grown dark outside and the warm, gentle light from the lamps and candles in his shop made it cozy. Crowley had been out for much of the afternoon. He’d gone back to his flat to water his plants and then goodness knew _where_ he’d gotten to after that. Aziraphale wasn’t worried. He’d come back when he was ready, like he always had.

Really, literally, like he _always_ had. It was just that ‘when he was ready’ happened to be much more frequently since they averted the apocalypse than it had been before, when each meeting was a risk to themselves and each other.

The sharp rap on the glass of the shop’s locked front door startled him out of his focus on the delicate pages of his book and he frowned. It wouldn’t be Crowley; Crowley wasn’t much for knocking when he _didn’t_ have a standing invitation to come and go as he pleased. A snap of the demon’s fingers and he’d be sauntering through the door with barely a pause in his distinctive stride.

_It must be a customer_, the angel noted to himself, getting up from his seat and walking over to the door, prepared to tell a nosy human that they were, he was afraid, _quite_ closed.

There was a human there, but not just some random Londoner with an interest in old books. Anathema Device was standing outside the shop, a handbag in her hand, looking prim and attentive as she waited for an answer to her knock.

Aziraphale opened the door.

“Anathema. This is quite a surprise.” He glanced around to see whether anyone was with her. She seemed to be alone. He stepped aside. “Do come in. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, pulling the door shut behind her and locking it once more.

She looked around the shop. She’d never been in it before; she’d gotten the address from Adam; Aziraphale had left it for him in case he needed anything. Once she’d taken it in, her gaze found the angel again.

“Is Crowley here?” she asked.

“Not at the moment,” Aziraphale told her. “Though I’m sure he’ll be back. Can I get you a cup of tea?”

“Yes, please.”

Aziraphale led her into the back room of the shop, fresh milk and sugar miraculously waiting on the little coffee table by the sofa.

“Please have a seat,” he told her politely. It wasn’t long – in fact, it wasn’t long enough to make tea – before he was back with a steaming hot pot of tea and a dainty china teacup, which he set in front of her before taking a seat himself in an armchair across from her.

“May I ask what you need to see Crowley about? Perhaps I can help.”

She pressed her lips together a moment and carefully poured a cup of tea, glancing at him as she set the teapot down.

“I… pay attention to a lot of… occult research, I guess you could say. When I was on my mission to avert the apocalypse, I didn’t know what sorts of tools I’d need.”

“No, of course,” Aziraphale said encouragingly.

She paused and nodded, seeming to resolve something within herself. “I think… people have a lot of different ideas about Heaven and Hell and how they… relate to humans.”

“Oh, indeed they do,” the angel agreed amicably.

She looked at him for a long moment, seeming to look for something in his face. “I’m sorry,” she told him sincerely. “You seem _so_ nice and…”

He raised his eyebrows expectantly when she trailed off there.

She took a deep breath. “Listen, one of the message boards I’m on…”

His expression was faintly quizzical.

“On the Internet,” she clarified.

“Ah.” He nodded as though that explained everything that was confusing him.

“Some of the people on there consider themselves…. Sort of self-styled ‘demon hunters’.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened and she thought that maybe he’d figured out everything she was about to say, but no. Not so much. He was more appalled at the notion.

“_Demon_ hunters?”

“Yes,” she told him gravely, “and they’re on their way here from the States. They’ve gotten word somehow that there’s a demon living in London who has red hair and wears dark glasses - even at night - and frequents a bookshop in Soho."

Aziraphale’s brow creased. “But… that’s Crowley.”

“I know,” Anathema replied. “That’s why I came.”

“But… these demon hunters: they’re hunting _Crowley_? What _for_?”

“To kill him, Aziraphale. That’s what they _do_,” she explained bluntly.

Aziraphale looked aghast and he stood restlessly. “To _kill_ him? On whose authority?” he gasped indignantly.

“I mean, I guess they think they’re working for God.” 

“Well,” the angel huffed, “I can assure you that they most definitely are _not_. If God wanted demons to be dead instead of…. of _demons_, well. It was well within Her power at the end of the war in Heaven, I’ll have you know. And if these ill-informed upstarts think they’re going to swan into _my_ bookshop and _kill_ my demon, then they’ll rather have to go through me!”

However grim her expression, she couldn’t help a small smile at that.

“Well, I expect Crowley will have a thing or two to say about it, too. But I don’t know how much they really know about demons or what’s involved in killing one. They could be a bunch of bumbling idiots or they could be well prepared and extremely, extremely dangerous.”

“I think we have to assume the latter,” Aziraphale conceded, perching back on the edge of his seat. “If we prepare for dangerous, we’ll be able to handle idiots.” He paused as something occurred to him. “Oh. I say ‘we’. I didn’t mean to assume that you’re offering to… be involved any further than the warning.”

“No, no. I want to help. I… came here to help,” Anathema hurried to correct him.

After a moment, she picked up her teacup and took a sip as Aziraphale nodded his acceptance, resting his hands on his thighs and looking vaguely anxious. His mind was probably already filling with possible scenarios full of shady Americans coming to rob him of his…. partner? She wasn’t sure what they called their relationship, but she was sure of the way the angel’s face changed at the airbase when he started talking about how they met. The incredibly improbable story of how they allegedly met, only based on the tiny amount of it she’d heard.

“Listen,” she said, leaning towards Aziraphale a little bit. “At the airbase you said that he was a serpent and you were on apple tree duty and Agnes’ prophesies refer to what could _only_ be him as ‘the Serpent’, with a capital ‘S’.” She paused, hesitating before just plunging in. “Are you saying that Crowley is the snake that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden?”

More to the point for Anathema, was Aziraphale suggesting that the Garden of Eden was _real_?

Even though the situation was grim and even though they were talking about what had to be some kind of unflattering moment in history for him, the angel’s face lit a little at being asked the question.

“Oh, yes. Crowley is the Serpent of Eden. I’m not sure the ‘temptation’ went exactly as most people think it did… In my experience, Crowley tends to tempt – very effectively, I might add – by asking people why they should resist doing what it is they want to do and lets them talk themselves into it. He actually suggested that even God wanted them to eat the apple, or else why put the tree right in the middle of the Garden? ‘Why not on a high mountain?’ he said. ‘Why not on the _moon_?’ But, at any rate, we both watched the first humans leave the Garden that day. That’s how we met.”

There was something a little wistful in his expression come the end of the story.

“How long ago was that?” Anathema, ever curious, asked.

“Six thousand years ago,” Aziraphale told her. His expression sobered as the demon hunters came to the forefront of his mind again. “Six thousand years… Crowley’s been on Earth as long as the human race has existed and they think _they_ have a _right_ to remove him from it? How _dare_ they? How _dare_ they be so…. so _arrogant_!”

“I find that’s one of the sins that comes _really_ naturally to a certain kind of people,” Anathema replied dryly. She reached over and patted Aziraphale’s hand. “Don’t worry. We won’t let them…”

She was interrupted by the sound of the front door banging open and then slamming shut again. It sounded like the Serpent of Eden was home.

“Angel!” he shouted before he’d reached the back room where they sat. “I had a thought on the way here that will really brighten the place up. Picture this…” He came into the back room making a marquee with his hands across the air in front of him. “Roof garden.”

He paused as he noticed Anathema there. He looked from her to Aziraphale and back.

“Hello,” he ventured suspiciously, watching the scene from behind his sunglasses.

Aziraphale interjected a little too quickly, before Anathema could say anything.

“Crowley! Look who’s in town and popped by for a visit,” he exclaimed, just a little too brightly.

Crowley seemed to eye him warily for just a second, but his suspicion ended up having nothing to do with Aziraphale’s demeanor. “And you’re drinking _tea_?” He shrugged his jacket off and slung it over the back of a chair as he looked at Anathema, putting a hand to his chest. “I’m _so_ sorry for his manners.” He looked at Aziraphale. “I’m going upstairs to get a bottle of wine,” he informed him, swaggering his way towards the stairs and out of sight.

Aziraphale let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and Anathema looked at him, a little confused. “You aren’t going to _tell_ him?”

“Tell him _what_? We haven’t even identified these… miscreants and… I just think we need to do a lot more work on this problem before we drag him into it and wind him up over it,” the angel told her in a low and hurried tone. “Anyway, do you…” As he looked towards the doorway Crowley had disappeared out of – just a quick check to see if the demon was about to come back – his eyes caught the jacket Crowley had left hanging over his chair. The image of Crowley’s abandoned jacket hanging over an empty chair _forever_ hit Aziraphale like a bag of bricks and he stopped, just staring at it for a moment. That’s what the universe looked like with no Crowley in it. Somewhere in London was a room full of plants, drying up and dying. Somewhere in the bookshop’s bustling street was an old Bentley in mint condition, probably illegally parked. And hanging over a chair in the back room of the bookshop was a black jacket with a red collar that had been right there for _years_ and it was not filled with a cranky and garrulous snake demon and never would be again and it made Aziraphale feel emptied out inside.

Anathema looked at him with concern. “…Aziraphale? Are you okay?”

Her voice snapped his attention away from the jacket and back to her face.

“What? Yes. No. Information. We need more information. Do you know when they were supposed to leave America?”

“Today sometime, from what I could tell. That doesn’t give us long.”

“If we could find out which flight they were on, I could delay it…”

She was about to question that but closed her mouth abruptly as Crowley emerged with a bottle of wine in one hand and the stems of three wine glasses clutched in the other, threaded between his long, slender fingers.

“You know, Angel, if you kept _dishes_ in the kitchen cupboards instead of _books_, we could ever find an extra wine glass when we’re looking for one.”

He set the glasses down and the cork popped out of the wine, seemingly of its own accord, so he could pour it. Once he had his glass in his hand, he flopped back into the chair his jacket hung over, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

“I see you managed to dig one up, though,” Aziraphale noted with a faltering smile.

Crowley’s gaze lingered there a moment, like he was assessing it, so Anathema jumped in.

“Aziraphale was just telling me the story of how you met,” she informed him with a smile.

Crowley heaved a very put-upon sigh. “_Really_? Angel, honestly…”

“Well, she did _ask_…” Aziraphale protested.


	2. Late Night Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale has an idea and needs Anathema to talk it through with because we're still not telling Crowley, ok?

As the wine flowed and the evening passed, even Aziraphale seemed to forget that anything was wrong. Anathema had curious questions about Heaven and Hell and magic and the angel and the demon often had amusing tangents to relate about the answers or else they would bicker between them as to what the answer actually was, which was at least as amusing for Anathema.

As the clock ticked past midnight, Aziraphale stood, indicating that he would make up the spare room for Anathema. It was late; why wander London or attempt to drive back to Tadfield?

Crowley looked up at him with a faint frown. “You have a _spare room_?” The angel had barely had the one requisite ‘room’, by his count, and only at Crowley’s insistence that he try what the demon assured him was the absolutely divine pleasure of sleep.

“I have now,” Aziraphale answered airily, making his way upstairs. “Or, at least, I will have in a moment.”

Crowley leaned back, wine glass still clutched in hand, looking over at their guest, still sporting the sunglasses he’d been wearing all night. She wondered how he could see anything now that the light in the shop was so dim, but he seemed to do just fine as he reached for the wine bottle and refilled his glass before tilting it towards her. She held her glass out for him to pour.

“Thank you,” she told him politely, then seemed like she wanted to say something else, thought better of it and closed her mouth, offering him a small, tight smile instead.

“Where’s your… computer…breaking….boy,” Crowley asked, making a sort of lazy circular motion with his hand as he tried to come up with a description of Newt. “Did he not make the trip?” he added, taking a sip of wine.

“Oh. No. He had to work. He got a new job. There’s this new tech company in Oxford that’s recycling electronics and making them into other things. His job is ripping broken circuit boards out of old computers. It’s working out well for him,” she said with a broader and more genuine smile.

Crowley nodded acceptance of that. That seemed reasonable.

After a moment’s considered silence, he asked “So what did you come to London _for_?”

“I didn’t get a good chance to see it when I arrived, what with all the… apocalypse going on. I thought it’d be nice to take a drive down.”

He nodded again. “You didn’t book a hotel?”

“I wasn’t planning on staying this late, to be honest. I was only going to pop in and say hi before I left.”

She was starting wonder if Crowley suspected something. His questions seemed just a little too pointed. Luckily, Aziraphale returned with a warm smile and a gesture to the stairs behind him.

“Room’s ready. Perhaps we can continue this conversation over breakfast,” he suggested. “There’s an absolutely delightful little tea room down the street.”

“Sounds good. Thank you,” she said, giving Crowley a polite smile before following Aziraphale to the quaint bedroom he was offering her for the night.

It was several hours later when she was awoken by worried (if hushed) tones. Aziraphale.

“Anathema?” he whispered. “_Anathema_.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him blearily. “Hm? Yes?” Her eyes opened wide and she sat up suddenly. “Are they here?” she asked frantically.

“No, no. Not yet,” Aziraphale told her quietly, handing her a robe that she was sure hadn’t been on the chair he’d picked it up from when she fell asleep. “But we haven’t any time to waste. Crowley is asleep. We need to find out what to expect from these demon hunters and I have an idea.”

He led her downstairs into the bookshop and picked up a step ladder as he made his way through the maze of shelves. He had a few old books on demons that he’d picked up ages ago, largely because he’d thought them _funny_, but it occurred to him as he’d watched Crowley drift to sleep that they were exactly the sort of tomes that human demon hunters might deem instructional. It was a place to start, at least.

As Anathema watched him climb the stepladder and look through the volumes stacked on the top of the shelf, the wheels in her head were turning too.

“Aziraphale, your… bodies: they’re not _real_ human bodies, right? I mean, it came up earlier that Crowley doesn’t really eat and you… _clearly_ don’t _sleep_…”

“Oh. No. Well, these corporeal forms are just meant to fit in down here. I _enjoy _eating, just like Crowley enjoys sleeping, but no. We don’t really _need_ to. Not like you do.”

“So can your bodies be _killed_ like a normal human body, or….?”

“Well. I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘killed’,” Aziraphale admitted. “The kinds of injuries that would kill a human would… what we call ‘discorporate’ us. The body dies and we’re flung forcefully back to Heaven or Hell, respectively, none the worse for wear, otherwise. It’s not _pleasant_ by any means, but it’s not permanent. The only bit of a sticky wicket _there_ is that neither of us is really in the good graces of the higher ups these days and they wouldn’t exactly be falling over themselves to issue either of us with a new body. That being said,” he confessed, his expression a little creased with sadness, “existing where I can’t really reach him is better than utter destruction.” He paused his hunt for the books to look over at Anathema. “To my knowledge, the only thing that can completely destroy a demon for good is holy water.” He turned back to the shelf he was searching. “But holy water is, unfortunately, extremely easy to find on Earth and even a drop of it is.... Well." His expression falters a little. "Let’s make sure no drops of it reach him, shall we?”

He took one book from the shelf, a volume bound in leather, and leafed through it as he stepped off the ladder, shaking his head at one passage on the need to rid the world of ‘evil’.

"Evil,” he huffed. “Not to say that some demons aren’t evil. Many of them most decidedly _are_. But Crowley isn’t _evil_. He’s barely even _naughty_. Do you know what he’s been largely _doing_ for the past six thousand years?” he asked Anathema rhetorically, not waiting for any kind of answer before answering the question himself. “’Mischief’ would be the most accurate word. He’s mischievous at worst. Do you want to hear some of his ‘evil deeds’?” Again, he didn’t wait for a reply. “The hellscape that’s the M25 was his. Flat packed furniture. Selfies. Those automated telephone menus where you have to press numbers for half an hour before it accidentally hangs up on you and you have to start all over. His most devilish work has been making human lives just slightly more annoying. He’d never _hurt_ anyone. Not that they knew that in Hell. He used to take credit for things that humans did on their own to score points with his bosses, but that’s still only prank level mischief,” he noted absently, still thumbing through the book. “World wars. The Spanish Inquisition. They thought those were him, but he’d _never_.”

He sighed and tossed the book aside, climbing the stepladder again and it occurred to Anathema that he was _babbling_. He was scared and he didn’t know what to do and, like a lot of people when they got anxious, the Angel of the Eastern Gate was _babbling_.

“Look,” she told him sympathetically, stepping a little closer to him, “I’m sure we’ll…”

He pulled another large, leatherbound book off the pile and took a step down the stepladder, but it unbalanced the stack of largely neglected tomes on the shelf and - as the angel stepped back - it tipped over, causing a chain reaction of falling books that clattered loudly enough to muffle the curse Aziraphale muttered.

For a moment he and Anathema just looked at each other, standing still like utter silence in that moment could nullify the racket that just occurred.

It did not.

A second later, Crowley was standing in the doorway, his usual black trousers accompanied by a black tank top and bare feet, his hair a little flattened, creases from the bed sheets pressed into the skin of his left cheek. But he hadn’t put his glasses back on as he strode down to investigate the noise and his bright yellow eyes pierced the lamp lit room.

“What in the _name_ of all that’s unholy are you doing down here?” he asked, taking in the scene. There were books all over the floor and, in the middle of the mess, one sheepish angel and one slightly embarrassed human.

“Oh. Crowley. Sorry. Did we wake you?” Aziraphale asked innocently, which only earned him a _look_ of frayed patience from the demon.

“You’re looking at books at three in the morning?” Crowley asked in a tone that suggested he didn’t believe it.

“Well, Anathema got up to get a drink of water,” Aziraphale said, pleased with his knowledge of what a human might realistically get up in the night for, “and you know I don’t sleep much and we got to talking and, anyway, to make a long story short, she’s interested in witchcraft and I think I have some books on witchcraft up there somewhere,” he said, gesturing vaguely to the shelf above.

He glanced at the mess of scattered books all over the floor.

“Well. Down there, now,” he amended.

Crowley stepped forward and snatched the book that Aziraphale was still holding in his hands.

“Demonology,” he read off the front of it. It was really a very pretty book in some ways, gold writing on a rich brown leather cover. Even if it did have a startling picture of a pointy-toothed monster embossed into it and also decorated in gold. Crowley raised an eyebrow at Aziraphale.

“Basically a comedy, to be honest. It was on top of the witch books. But when I picked it up, it knocked them down,” Aziraphale explained, illustrated by faint hand gestures.

Crowley shoved the large book back into the angel’s hands and rolled his eyes, turning to head back to bed.

“Don’t make her stand there while you clean this up. Humans _sleep_, Angel.”

“Right-o,” Aziraphale conceded with a certain forced cheer, waiting until he’d disappeared back up to the flat to turn to her with the book, flipping it open and leafing through the pages. “All right. Here we are,” he said, settling on a particular page. “’How to stop, attack or kill a demon’,” he read. “’A demon can be injured with salt and cannot cross a salt or iron line’…” His brow creased. “Lunch would be absolutely _fraught_ if salt could harm a demon,” he remarked absently. “Can you _imagine_?” He continued down the page. “’Holy water will also injure a demon, but they can be destroyed by Death’s scythe’… yes, well, good luck getting your hands on _that_,” he muttered. “‘Or by an angelic blade’. Yes, I suppose that’s true, but they’re also just about impossible to find on Earth.”

“Didn’t you have one at the airfield?” Anathema pointed out.

“Oh. Yes. That was mine originally, actually…” Aziraphale started to explain.

“…What do you mean, it was yours originally?”

“I mean, it was mine when I was guarding the Eastern Gate of Eden,” he said off-handedly, as though it were nothing at all. “I gave it to Adam and Eve when they were expelled. It was a dangerous world they were going into. Anyway, it’s not… in circulation. The Summoner collected it again and took it away.”

He considered the page of text in front of him thoughtfully. “I think the biggest danger is the use of holy water as… as a sort of spray bottle for cats, but for demons. It doesn’t _deter_ them; it destroys them horribly. If they think they’re going to use it to….” He paused and looked at Anathema. “Do you have any idea whether they’ve ever actually encountered a real demon before?”

Because the first time they used holy water that way, they’d have worked it out when the demon melted, screaming in agony.

Anathema shrugged and shook her head. “No. I didn’t actually speak to them.”

“….Could you?” Aziraphale asked. “I mean, could you position yourself as a demon hunter or someone interested in _becoming_ a demon hunter and ingratiate yourself with them and find out what they’re planning? You saw them on the computer, right? You could contact them that way. And you could point out that you have local knowledge that would help them locate this demon in Soho. And we could even lay a trap for them that way, if we need to.”

Anathema considered that and slowly nodded, gaining confidence in the idea with each bob of her head.

“Maybe I can. I’ll email them before I go back to sleep and see if they answer me when they land in London.”

“Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale gushed. “Thank you ever so much, honestly.”

“It’s the least I can do,” she assured him. “You risked a lot to save the world. You could have just gone back to the armies of Heaven and Hell like your bosses wanted you to.”

“Ah. Yes. They _were_ quite cross about that. But I’ve found it’s been entirely worth the risks, living free. Crowley was right.” He perked up. “It was your ancestor’s last prophesy, actually, that made it all possible,” he told her. “Without it, we would have both been horribly killed before we could even enjoy it.”

“After all is sayed and done, you must choose your faces wisely, for soon enough ye will be playing with fyre,” she recited.

“That’s the one,” he confirmed happily. He glanced around like someone might overhear and then leaned in conspiratorially. “We switched places,” he whispered, clearly still delighted with the ruse. “They tried to execute _me_ with holy water and Crowley with hellfire.”

“Which explains how you’re both still here.”

“Exactly. And out of the thrall of both Heaven and Hell, as long as they don’t realize we didn’t each gain some frightening new power.” He pressed his mouth into a grim line. “And as long as we don’t let idiots with holy waterguns or something equally ridiculous get anywhere near Crowley with them.”

He slammed the book shut.

“But I’ve kept you up long enough. We’ve something of a plan to get on with in the morning. Best get off to bed,” he told her with a small, kind smile.

“We won’t let them get him,” Anathema assured him, reaching out to give his arm a squeeze before heading up to the flat above.


	3. The Plan Starts To Unfold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema and Aziraphale's late night plan starts to slot together.

Despite the previous night’s interruption, Anathema was up early, pecking away at her laptop in the little room Aziraphale had set her up in, in the cozy flat above his shop. The demon hunters had responded to her middle of the night message and it would seem its timing of shortly after three in the morning gave her some extra would-be demon hunter credibility. Apparently, they’d left the town they lived in the previous day, but their flight out of Los Angeles was that afternoon and they weren’t expected to land in London until the following morning, local time. 

Who was she? She was a former American student who’d gone to London for her studies and for adventure and had stayed. She knew the city well. She even knew the neighbourhood they were talking about; Soho had several bookshops; she’d help them narrow it down.

She was eager to tell Aziraphale that, so far, the plan was working but by the time she’d gotten dressed and made her way down to the bookshop, Crowley was sprawled on the sofa in the back room reading a fashion magazine, more to irritate his angel than to get up to vogue.

“Good morning,” she said politely. 

Aziraphale had been on the other side of some shelves but did give Crowley’s reading material a look of distaste as he noticed it. She wondered if the demon was as good at being a little shit as he tried to be or if the angel was indulging him to some degree. At any rate, the demon pretended not to notice as he flipped the page.

“Good morning,” Aziraphale replied brightly, with a genuine smile. “Are you ready for breakfast?” He swatted Crowley’s knee where the demon’s leg was slung over the leg of the sofa, which clearly meant ‘let’s go’, as Crowley tossed the magazine onto the other side of the sofa and unfolded his lanky frame to get to his feet.

“Yes, I think I’ve been dreaming about fresh scones,” Anathema answered. As Crowley turned and Aziraphale was still facing her, she gave him a quick, discreet thumbs up. He raised his eyebrows, hoping that meant what he thought it meant, but Crowley turned towards them again to see what the hold up was.

“You two are too enthusiastic about pastries for this time of the morning,” he told them, spying the thumbs up, then headed out of the bookshop.

But, of course, Aziraphale was _never_ ‘too enthusiastic’ about pastries for Crowley’s taste and when they sat down in the little tea room, Aziraphale couldn’t decide between the chocolate cupcake filled with raspberry buttercream or the mince pie, and so – at Crowley’s encouragement – ordered both, accompanied by the oolong tea. Anathema ordered the scone, which came with clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam and chose a rosehip infused tea from the menu. Crowley ordered black coffee. The fact that the waitress seemed to take him and his dark glasses in the cozy but dimly lit little tea room in stride suggested to Anathema that Crowley and Aziraphale had probably been there before.

“This place is lovely,” Anathema remarked. “Do they get a lot of tourists here?”

“Oh no,” Aziraphale told her. “It’s quite off the beaten path, as it were.”

“And someone sees to it that it stays that way,” Crowley said archly.

“I’m _sure_ I don’t know what you mean,” Aziraphale commented, setting his white linen napkin across his lap and patting it down.

“Mmmmmhmm.”

Anathema looked from Aziraphale to Crowley and back, but didn’t ask the question. These two, though. They had power. She knew that, of course, on some level but… more than she’d realized.

Their orders arrived and Crowley stirred his coffee - even though he hadn’t put anything in it - though the oddest thing was that he spent most of the meal watching Aziraphale eat. He wasn’t even pretending not to stare; he was actually leaning towards the angel a little bit. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was interested in the food, but it wasn’t that. If he was interested in food, he could certainly afford it. It could only have been that he was interested in Aziraphale _eating_ food. Or, perhaps, based on how Aziraphale ate the food, he was interested in Aziraphale _enjoying_ food.

It was a little awkward being the third wheel at that table, if she was honest, and she couldn’t explain how the plan was going, though she was bursting to, as – for reasons beyond her – Aziraphale still seemed not to want to tell Crowley that he was in danger.

Okay, maybe the reasons weren’t beyond her. The angel was clearly very protective of the demon and she suspected the feeling was mutual. She was in love; she knew how it went.

“Delicious,” Aziraphale declared, patting his mouth with the napkin from his lap before setting it on his plate and picking up his tea.

“So,” Crowley said casually, looking at each of them, “did you find those books on witchcraft?”

“Oh. Yes. But they aged a little… badly to be to Anathema’s taste,” Aziraphale told him.

Anathema was a little impressed by how easily an angel could lie but also a little disturbed by it. She also thought they should tell Crowley what was going on, but he wasn’t her… whatever they were to each other.

“I was thinking maybe we could visit some of the other charming bookshops in this neighbourhood today,” Anathema suggested, hoping that Crowley was as Too Cool For Books as he seemed to be and that Aziraphale got the hint.

Part one of that hope got a boost as Crowley groaned with a big dramatic eyeroll that she couldn’t actually see and yet was somehow still obvious. It was one of those whole head eyerolls. “More books. Good idea. Yippee,” he declared flatly.

“That is an absolutely _delightful_ idea,” Aziraphale told her brightly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Crowley said, getting up. “You two have fun.”

“Where are you off to?” Aziraphale asked, looking up at him. Anathema thought a flutter of concern crossed his features and she was dying to tell him the Americans hadn’t even landed on British soil yet.

“_Literally_ anywhere else,” Crowley said, tossing some crumpled notes from his pocket onto the table.

“But you’ll come back to the shop to join us for dinner,” Aziraphale said in what wasn’t quite a question.

“Yeah, all right,” Crowley pretended to concede, as if there were any doubt. He held up a finger. “So long as you two promise to talk about anything other than books.”

“Yes, good. Well. Be safe out there,” Aziraphale said not at all casually, despite his best efforts.

“Angel,” Crowley said indulgently, “I’m a bloody _demon_. Unless Heaven or Hell is on the prowl for us today, I think I’ll be all right.” He clapped Aziraphale on the shoulder and let his fingers slide along the back of the angel’s collar as he sauntered away.

Anathema didn’t say anything until Crowley was out the door and had walked past the window, but then she turned to Aziraphale and clutched his sleeve.

“They’re not going to get here until tomorrow, so he’s safe for now. They’re looking to me to play tour guide, so I can control where they go… maybe we should set up a trap at a different bookstore.”

Aziraphale put a hand to his chest. “Oh, what a _relief_!” He was suddenly much less concerned about Crowley wandering the streets of Soho for the day.

“We have to have some kind of a plan for what to actually do with them, though,” Anathema pointed out. “I mean, they’ve come here to kill a demon and if I take them to a bookshop and then nothing _happens_…. Well, they’re not just going to shrug and leave. They’ll up their hunt.”

Aziraphale considered that for a moment. “How accurate is their picture of Crowley? Do they have a photograph of him or just a rough description? Do they know more than red hair and sunglasses or….?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Their initial conversation about it online was asking for advice or volunteers and it sounded like just the rough description, but without knowing where their information is coming from…. It’s hard to say exactly how well they know what he looks like. Why? What are you suggesting? A decoy?”

“Well, yes. If they’re packing holy water and salt, we need someone who can pretend to be injured and killed by it. They’ll be satisfied with their Good Works and then they’ll go away and Crowley will never be the wiser.”

Anathema shifted a little uncomfortably. “Shouldn’t we tell him, though? I mean, we know what the danger is now. Shouldn’t we tell him about it?”

Aziraphale also had the grace to look uncomfortable but he shook his head obstinately. “You don’t understand. Crowley isn’t _like_ other demons. He hasn’t ever really… _fit in_ in Hell, from what he’s told me. And based on what he’s said about his Fall, he didn’t fit in very well in Heaven before that, either. When they asked him to deliver the antichrist… Anathema, he’s the one that chose Earth. I was ready to do my duty, as distasteful as I found it; it was Crowley that pushed me to help save the planet. When the time came to choose sides, he chose _you_. I can’t tell him that, after helping to save their whole bloody species, there are humans that want to murder him just for existing. I _can’t_. Earth is his _side_.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, but she couldn’t very well _argue_ with it. She nodded resolutely. “Next time I talk to them, I’ll find out if they have a more accurate description so I can tell whether I’ve seen the demon they’re hunting around. In the meantime,” she stood and offered him her arm, “we should check out the other bookshops in this neighbourhood so we can see which one would be the best place to lay our trap.”

He stood and looped his arm through hers, pleased and grateful.

“And,” she said, looking over at him, “actually visiting bookshops means we can lie to Crowley less. He won’t ask about the trip; he doesn’t want to hear any more about books.”

“Yes, quite,” Aziraphale agreed happily, and they headed out.


	4. Something Worth Protecting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema gets prepared, Aziraphale gets nervous and prepared and Crowley remains clueless.

After dinner, which had gone similarly to breakfast in that it largely involved Crowley watching Aziraphale eat, Anathema excused herself to head up to her room and ‘freshen up’. Once she shut the door behind herself, she pulled out her laptop and checked whether any of the demon hunters were online. They were at the airport, waiting for their flight. She asked them to meet her the next day, at 11am London time, at the tea room down the road.

‘_What does the demon look like?_’ she typed. ‘_Maybe I’ve seen him already._’

‘_Red hair. Sunglasses. Dresses in black. I’m told he’s hard to miss._’

‘_Are you sure it’s a demon? There are a lot of eccentric people in this neighbourhood._’

‘_Definitely a demon. But we’ll check when we catch him._’

‘_Check how?_’

‘_Holy water_.’

‘_Do you have a picture of him_?’

‘_No. But I’m told he stands out._’

Well. That he did, she thought. But most people didn’t seem to notice.

Meanwhile, down in the bookshop’s back room, Crowley was opening a bottle of wine. Aziraphale watched him for a moment, then stepped up behind him, slipping one arm around his waist and pressing his cheek to the back of Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley, about to pour, paused, glancing over his shoulder.

“You all right?” he ventured.

“Just missed you,” Aziraphale lied. He laughed uneasily. “Remember when we used to go a century or so without seeing each other and it was nothing? Now you’re out for six hours and it’s _forever_.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say it was _nothing_…” Crowley drawled, shifting to loop his own arm around Aziraphale, drawing him around in front of him. “But something’s bothering you. It’s been bothering you all day,” he said, searching the angel’s face. “What is it?” he asked earnestly, forgoing his normal tactic of cloaking things that mattered in sarcasm or barbs.

“I’ve just… been having some concerns. When we’re not… together. About… someone coming for you. Us. Either of us. About… getting complacent.”

Not _entirely_ a lie; he more just left room for Crowley to assume he was talking about Heaven and/or Hell. Which he did.

“Angel,” he sighed, “you and I both know how they work. They won’t put resources into investigating how we did what we did; they can’t risk making a big deal of it lest any _other_ angels or demons decide to get uppity. They’ll make sure everyone knows Crowley and Aziraphale have been taken care of. Maybe mention deposited back on Earth. Maybe they’ll use the word ‘exiled’. Whatever makes it go away nice and fast so they can get on with being officious wankers.”

“You’re right, of course,” Aziraphale conceded, pulling out of his grasp. Crowley just raised his eyebrows at him. “I’m going to go check on Anathema,” he said, heading towards the stairs.

“’Check on Anathema’?” Crowley questioned. “Do humans need some sort of special care I’m not familiar with?” he asked a little sarcastically.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Aziraphale chided softly. “I just want to make sure she’s comfortable. I’m concerned she might feel like she’s intruding.”

“Well. She kind of _is_,” Crowley pointed out.

“_Crowley_!” Aziraphale admonished sharply.

“All right. Fine. Check on her,” Crowley said in surrender, ushering him towards the stairs.

“I won’t be a moment. Pour me a glass,” Aziraphale told him by way of compromise. He didn’t want to actually push Crowley away, but keeping the secret was a lot of work around the curious, ever-questioning demon.

He tapped lightly on Anathema’s door and she called for him to come in. When she looked up and saw he was alone, she stood eagerly.

“I’m talking to them right now. They don’t have a photograph, just as much of a description as I told you. I asked how they could be sure this person is a demon. They basically said they trust their information, but they’re going to check when they capture him.” Her expression grew grim. “With holy water.” She glanced at the computer. “I wish I knew where they got this information from in the first place, but they’re not being that forthcoming.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Well. It’s good they don’t really know what he looks like. We can use a decoy.”

“I think the third bookshop we looked at today would be the best place to lead them. I just… don’t know what we do with them when we get them there.”

“A trick. Like you said, if they think they’ve killed a demon, they’ll leave, right? A job well done.”

“Unless whoever told them about him in the first place tells them that he’s still walking around here afterwards.”

Aziraphale pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Perhaps we can find out their sources. I have more than a few cheap slight of hand tricks up my sleeve, you know,” he joked amicably, if a little uneasily.

“And all without telling or involving Crowley,” she confirmed one more time.

“I would prefer he not know, yes. But we _will_ have to keep him occupied and relatively out of sight while we spring our trap for these unwanted visitors. I’ll think about that. Good job,” he told her. “Thank you so much.”

She offered a small, reassuring smile. “It’ll be over soon.”

Once Aziraphale had gone back downstairs, she finished her conversation with the demon hunters and closed the laptop, then headed downstairs herself. Aziraphale was sitting on the sofa, reading a book that was propped up in one hand. The other hand rested lightly on Crowley’s hip, as Crowley was draped unceremoniously across the angel’s lap, using the arm of the sofa as a headrest. And also, as it turned out, as a place to put the remote for the small television directly across from them that Anathema hadn’t noticed there before.

“No, no,” Crowley was saying. “There has to be something much more rubbish than _this_ on the telly. We’re in the golden age of reality television.”

“Whatever you like,” Aziraphale said mildly, his eyes still on his book.

Crowley reached for the remote and promptly knocked it down the space between the sofa and the end table.

“Oh, bollocks,” he cursed, turning onto his stomach and wriggling up towards the arm of the sofa more, so he could reach down between the sofa and the end table to feel around for the remote in the narrow space between them. It was quite a process.

Aziraphale, Anathema noticed, was still reading his book, the most serene expression on his face despite (because of?) the chaos currently unfolding in his lap. He glanced up as he spotted Anathema out the corner of his eye and smiled broadly.

“Good evening. Glass of wine?” he offered, gesturing to the coffee table with his book, no real acknowledgement of the fact that he had a pile of squirming demon cursing down the arm of his sofa in the other hand. But maybe that was perfectly normal. “I’m assured there’s some absolute rubbish on the television tonight, if you’d care to join us.”

“AH _HA_!” Crowley shouted triumphantly as he pulled the remote out of the hole, settling back into lounging on the angel, as opposed to clambering over him. He started flipping channels until he came across one that involved overly tanned young people bickering pettily around a swimming pool. “There. I told you,” he said, setting the remote back on its precarious perch on the arm of the sofa.

“So you did,” Aziraphale agreed amicably.

Anathema poured herself a glass of wine and sat in an armchair adjacent to the sofa. It was oddly warm, the atmosphere in the room, despite the close clutter of books and the supernatural entities that lived among it.

Or because of it. It should have felt like this weird quasi-Victorian alien _realm_. Spending any real time with the angel and the demon, it became obvious that they weren’t human. And yet? It felt _homey_. Cozy. _Comfortable_.

She was more resolved than ever. She’d done the right thing by coming here. This had to be protected.


	5. Entrapment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Anathema spring the demon hunter trap.

Over breakfast, Aziraphale had asked Crowley to keep an eye on the bookshop late that afternoon. He had to run an errand.

“Oh, come on,” Crowley had protested. “Why don’t you just shut it like you did yesterday?”

“I have a pretense to maintain, my dear. People are supposed to think I’m interested in selling books.”

“Nobody who’s been here would think that,” Crowley replied flatly.

But, of course, he ultimately relented and agreed to the favour. It was pretty clear there were few favours he couldn’t be talked into by the angel.

Anathema went to her tea house meeting with the demon hunters from America at eleven o’clock or, as they told Crowley, to meet up with some friends. After she returned, Aziraphale left Crowley minding the shop and hurried out the door with her. She could help him with his ‘errand’, he told her.

Once outside, they headed down the street, the angel’s eyes darting around. Anathema knew where the demon hunters were, though. Waiting where she’d told them to wait.

“They’re at their hotel, waiting for my call,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. She glanced at him and changed the subject to something a little lighter. “So. Crowley’s into trashy reality shows,” she noted with a wry smile.

“Oh, of _course_ he is,” Aziraphale said with a little wave of his hand. “He invented them.”

“He _invented_ them?”

Aziraphale looked over at her. “My dear, you’ve been with us for three days. You don’t think reality television has his fingerprints all over it? And I’ll have you know he’s very proud, both of how popular it’s become and how low it has sunk.”

She had to concede that point with an amused dip of her head and looped her arm through his.

“The bookshop we’re going to use closes at 5. I told them he often goes there after hours; that should jive with any intelligence they’ve received anyway, based on when Crowley showed up the other night. I’m supposed to call them when he arrives.” She looked at Aziraphale. “How do you want to play this?”

“Well, I only have to match his vaguest description. Change the colour of my hair… my clothes, perhaps…”

“_Your_ hair? You’re going to pretend to be the demon? What if they _hurt_ you?” Anathema exclaimed.

Aziraphale waved off the concern. It seemed in their triumph over the punishments of Heaven and Hell, he’d grown a little cocky in his ability to avert attacks through deception. “They told you they’re going to test the demon with holy water. I’ll pretend it hurts, miracle up some burns and make it look like I’ve dissolved.”

“Listen, I get that you have these magic powers and can… do…. stuff,” Anathema conceded, “but we don’t know what they’re going to _do_. And in that light, this is just as dangerous for _you_ as it would be for Crowley.”

“No, it isn’t,” Aziraphale insisted. “They think they’re combating a demon; the advantage will be mine. They can’t hurt me the way they’ll try hurting him.”

“Well, I’m sorry but I thought the implication that we were going to trick them meant… a trick. Not _you_ putting yourself in harm’s way. I’m not sure about this, Aziraphale. I don’t like it. If you’re going to face them anyway, you should just tell Crowley and come up with a plan together.”

“_No_.” The final word. The angel was firm. “No. I won’t have that. It’s out of the question. We can handle this. It will be over in a few hours.”

Anathema sighed. Damn stubborn angels and the demon hunters that disturbed their peace.

“All right, all right,” she conceded. She could see she wouldn’t win; it’d be up to her to have the angel’s back, if he wouldn’t let Crowley do it. “So I’ll call them and they’ll meet me outside the bookshop. You’ll be inside pretending you’re… I don’t know. Organizing books or something. We’ll ‘surprise’ you. You’ll let them pretend kill you. …Maybe I can stick with them a little bit afterwards and see if I can get their source out of them.” She blew a breath out through pursed lips. “It could work. It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s a fine plan. It will work,” Aziraphale assured her.

“Still rather have a demon for backup,” she muttered.

“Don’t start,” Aziraphale admonished.

They sat in a little coffee shop to pass the time, chatting about what it was like for Anathema growing up with such a heavy fate on her shoulders and things Aziraphale had witnessed as he watched all of human history unfold.

At that time of year, the sun was already low in the sky shortly after five o’clock in the evening. Aziraphale stepped out of the coffee shop and around the corner into a little alley, looking at Anathema before waving one hand around his head, causing his hair to turn bright red, though nothing else was changed about it. There was no need. Another wave of his hand and his clothes switched from light earth tones to black, black and black.

“There,” he said. “Passable enough, right?”

“I’d say so. And I’m going to put them onto you, so it’s not like they’ll have a chance to compare you to anyone else in the neighbourhood.”

Aziraphale left the alley and headed down the block to the bookshop in question, letting himself in with a snap of his fingers. Anathema lingered in the alleyway, watching as she took out her phone. She made the call, meeting the demon hunters as they approached from down the street. By then, Aziraphale had been inside the bookshop for almost twenty minutes and there were a couple of soft lights on, visible through the windows. Anathema followed the four men up to the bookshop and was about to ask if they intended to knock or pick the lock when one of the men unceremoniously just kicked the door right open.

Well. She was doubly glad they decided not to do this at Aziraphale’s bookshop.

Aziraphale, in his demon garb, probably didn’t have to fake being startled by the abrupt entrance and he clutched two books to his chest as the demon hunters entered and fanned out. He looked between them warily.

“I’m afraid we’re closed,” he told them. “But I’m sure someone will be available to help you if you come back tomorrow.”

One of the men laughed. “You mean there’ll be someone here to help _you_,” he said.

“If you’re here for money, I’m afraid none is kept on the premises after hours,” Aziraphale informed him politely.

“Enough of the pretense, demon. We know what you are,” one of the others said roughly.

He looked at the man that spoke.

Right then, one of the others hit him hard in the back of the head wearing a set of iron knuckle dusters and he crumpled to the ground.

_A demon cannot cross a salt or iron line…_

Anathema couldn’t fight four armed men. When Aziraphale hit the floor with the impact of the unexpectedly sudden, brutal violence, she bolted out the open door behind her and ran down the street. She could hear the laughter of the men behind her, jeering at her 'weak stomach' for demon hunting, but she ignored it. Her first thought was Crowley. She had to get to Crowley and tell him what was happening.


	6. Summoning a Demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale needs backup and Anathema decides 'to hell with it' and gets Crowley.

Crowley was in the bookshop, starting to get impatient with the angel's continued absence and the need to talk to random strangers that walked in like he was interested in books and what they were worth. He was, by the time Anathema burst into the shop, sitting with his back to the door and his feet up on one of the shelves of philosophy books. He sighed when he heard the door open, expecting another bookish non-angel, turning around with a put upon look, but it wasn't a stranger. It was Anathema, breathless and wide-eyed.

He frowned and got to his feet.

“Aziraphale is in trouble,” she panted.

“What in the heaven have you two _done_?” he seethed warily, advancing on her.

She held up her hands. “There were some demon hunters looking for you. He made me promise not to tell you. He said we could take care of it.”

Crowley's exasperated eye-roll involved his _entire_ body before he turned back to Anathema. “Why would he _do_ that? _WHY_?”

She looked at him with some degree of concern. “He said you chose to side with humanity in the apocalypse and he didn't want you to see some of them... destroy you just for existing.”

It had never, as far as she had been concerned, been a completely convincing argument, but she understood the angel's desire to protect his... loved one. That was something that made sense to her. And he'd been _so_ earnest about it.

“That... that ridiculous white-winged _idiot_!” Crowley was busy exclaiming. “Does he think I don't _know_ what your lot are capable of?” he asked rhetorically, gesturing towards her in a way that made her almost inclined to take offense. “I've watched humans skip delightedly through the ages to destroy others just for _existing_. The Inquisition, the Crusades, the French Revolution, the Holocaust...” he ranted. He turned to her. “Where _is_ he?” he hissed.

“A bookshop about six blocks away,” she told him, gesturing in the direction she'd run from, still watching him warily, because he was still a demon and she wasn't sure what he was going to do in this state.

“Come on,” he told her, sweeping out the door and heading for the Bentley, parked kitty corner across the street.

She got in the car, her gaze cautious as he started the engine and did a reckless u-turn through the busy street, miraculously missing pedestrians and other vehicles.

“You know,” he mused as he weaved between cars at a dangerous speed, “there was a time in Hell when a demon would get a commendation for seducing an angel, but fall in love with one? Suddenly it's all execution by holy water.” He held up a hand with his thumb and forefinger a tiny bit apart. “And that is a _very_ fine line!”

The tires screeched as he narrowly missed a bus and Anathema gripped the door handle as she glanced at him sidelong. He looked at her.

“_And_ they're all idiots,” he complained bitterly, more to himself than her, right before the car screeched to a halt.

He was out and striding towards the door the moment the car stopped moving and Anathema rushed to keep up with him.

“Be careful,” Anathema warned him as they climbed the front steps. “They said they had holy water.”

“Well that's hardly going to hurt an angel,” he remarked, noting that the front door was off its hinges and slumped against the frame. Inside, he could see some shadows moving between the stacks at the back.

“No, well, I hear it can burn _your_ face right off,” she reminded him bluntly. They were both ridiculous, she decided, and that was that. Two idiots, probably _literally_ made for each other.

Crowley didn't respond to that, though something in his expression hardened and he strode into the bookshop with the same sort of swagger with which he strode into the apocalypse: the kind that he used to hide his fear under.

“Hey guys,” he announced brightly as he drew closer to the commotion. When he reached them, he could see two of them were pinning Aziraphale's shoulders to the ground with their boots and a third was wielding an axe. A bloody _axe_. Crowley's faux-friendly demeanour dropped right off his face, leaving sharp lines and a dark glare. “I hear you're slaying yourselves an angel. Very naughty,” he remarked. “Not going to get you a good word in with the Almighty, I'm afraid.”

Aziraphale was trying to wriggle out of their grasp, but froze when he heard Crowley, his eyes snapping up. “No!”

“Shhhhhh,” Crowley told him, holding up a finger. He was very cross, this finger said. Very cross indeed.

“The demon,” one of them exclaimed.

“Kill them both,” said another.

Then there was a clunk on the floor behind Crowley and he turned. Anathema had elbowed the fourth man in the face as he snuck up with a spray bottle. She kicked the bottle away from his hands as the man with the axe turned to advance on the actual demon while his two friends kept Aziraphale on the ground.

Enough.

Crowley snapped his fingers and everyone froze except the angel, the demon and the witch.


	7. A-Hunting they A-Went

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley's intervention in the hunt has changed the dynamic a bit.

Aziraphale was trying to get out from under the two hunters' boots, which were pinning his arms, but it wasn't proving any easier with them frozen.

Crowley strode over and leveled a look at him.

“By all rights I should leave you there to get your head chopped off this time,” he said flatly.

“They were supposed to use traditional demon hunting tools; I didn't _know_ they had an axe!” Aziraphale protested, still wriggling in an attempt to get free.

They both knew it was a completely empty threat; Crowley didn't speed to the angel's rescue to pointedly not rescue him. He shoved each of the demon hunters off of the angel and bent to help him up, but Aziraphale scrambled backwards, away from him.

“DON'T TOUCH ME!” he cried.

“...You what?” Crowley said darkly. Though the bulk of his reaction to that was hidden behind the dark lenses of his glasses, there was a tension in his jaw that suggested he was taken aback and probably a little hurt.

“They sprayed me with holy water,” Aziraphale explained miserably. “You can't touch me at all. Don't even come near me. Not until I've cleaned it up. I'm absolutely _drenched_,” he said, patting down his still damp clothes.

“Well,” Crowley said, swallowing his initial reaction like someone well practiced in swallowing their feelings and falling almost unconsciously back a few steps, “fix your hair. I can't even look at you like that. You look ridiculous. What are you _wearing_?”

Aziraphale looked down at his outfit as he got to his feet. “I'm dressed like you,” he explained a little defensively.

“You're not dressed like me. You're dressed like _you_, except... in mourning or something,” Crowley countered a little distastefully.

Aziraphale sighed a little and made a fussy little gesture with his hand and his hair and clothes changed back to their normal colours. But still damp with holy water.

“The demon hunters, Crowley. What do we _do_ with them?” he asked.

Crowley raised his eyebrows at Aziraphale sharply. “Oh, I'm sorry. Was that not part of your wonderful bloody plan that didn't _need_ me?”

Aziraphale gave him a bit of a glare, but not much of one. “I wanted to find out the source of their information. Someone _told_ them they could find you at a bookshop in Soho. For all we know, whoever told them that intentionally wanted you killed! These people have come all the way from _America_ to murder you. They don't take the task lightly.”

As Crowley turned to inspect the axe wielder more closely, peering at his immobile face, twisted with aggression, Aziraphale shuffled further away from him, to maintain the distance between Crowley and the holy water soaked clothes.

Crowley snapped his fingers in front of the demon hunter's face and the man unfroze but immediately dropped the axe and stared straight ahead.

“Who told you about the demon in Soho?” he asked.

“A man on the internet,” he immediately replied, almost robotically.

“Who was he? What do you know about him?” Crowley demanded.

Anathema stepped closer, peering into the man's face. His eyes were blank. What was it? Some sort of hypnosis? It was a little terrifying that Crowley could do that, actually.

“He said he was a witch hunter, but when we asked about witches, he said he'd never found a real one. We said he couldn't call himself a witch hunter if he'd never seen a witch. He said he'd done better than that. He saw a demon.”

“What was his _name_?” Crowley insisted, though he was starting to have an idea.

“We don't use names on the forum. He said he'd seen a demon and it frequented a book store in Soho, in London. We thought it was ridiculous, but he described the demon. Said he knew it was a demon. He'd seen its powers. It gave itself away.”

Something in the way Crowley's jaw tensed made Aziraphale step forward, despite the danger from his damp clothing.

“When you wake up, you and your friends will realize that this man on the internet was just crazy and there _is_ no demon in Soho. In fact, if he mentions it online again, you'll tell him and everyone else just what a kook he is,” the angel's soothing voice advised. “In the meantime, you best run away from this mess, before the police arrive. You've been breaking and entering.”

Crowley's gaze was still fixed on the demon hunter's face, his jaw still tense. Aziraphale went to put a hand on his arm, but stopped himself.

“Crowley,” he said softly, instead.

After a moment, Crowley looked at him, then turned away from the demon hunter and walked out of the bookshop. Anathema's eyes widened. Was that it?

Aziraphale snapped his fingers and the demon hunter woke up looking confused. Outside the door, Crowley snapped his fingers, then got in his car. The rest of them unfroze. They all seemed dazed as they came to their senses. Aziraphale took Anathema's arm and hustled her out of the shop.

Crowley was watching them through the window of the Bentley, clearly waiting for them to get in.

Aziraphale shook his head. Holy water. Couldn't risk it.

With a low growl of frustration, Crowley sped off down the street and Aziraphale tilted his head in that direction, inviting Anathema to stroll with him back to _his_ bookshop. The demon hunters ran out of the bookshop and past them without even noticing them, disappearing around a corner.

“You look tired,” Anathema told Aziraphale as they made their way down the street.

“Yes, well. It's been quite a day. I almost got my head chopped off. I can kill my best friend by touching him right now. And he's still cross with me.”

Best friend, was it? That sure was a euphemism. Anathema nodded. “I couldn't help noticing that he said he should let you get your head cut off 'this time',” she pointed out.

Aziraphale looked slightly uncomfortable. “French Revolution. Long story.”

“Ah.” She looked at him. “It's unbelievable what you two have lived through.”

“You mean 'everything'?” he said with a weary laugh. “I suppose we could have closed the book on the Earth. Survived beginning to end and called it a day, couldn't we? But I think we're both far too fond of it. Too fond for the liking of either Head Office and probably for our own good as well.”

“Too fond of each _other_....” Anathema proposed.

“Well. Obviously,” Aziraphale sniffed. “Though Crowley is probably less fond of me at the moment than he was a couple of hours ago.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Anathema scoffed. “If he's mad at you, it's because you almost got your head cut off. _Again_, apparently,” she added, giving him a pointed sidelong look. “He doesn't want anything to happen to you as much as you don't want anything to happen to him, and you didn't... field that as a team today until you had to and that probably hurt his feelings.” She looked at him. “You know. The feelings he pretends he doesn't have,” she added flatly.

“Yes, well, he's a demon he h....” A beat. “Oh. You're suggesting that in trying to keep him from getting hurt, I'm the one that, in fact, hurt him.”

He didn't look happy as he mulled that over, but she nodded. That was, indeed, what she'd been suggesting.

“Oh. Oh dear,” he fretted. He glanced down at his sodden waistcoat and jacket. “What a mess.”

“I know you're used to sneaking around and stuff, but maybe try to remember you two are a team now.”

“Yes. Right.”

“It's hard for me too,” she offered. “I spent my whole life Fulfilling My Destiny. Sharing responsibility for simple life things hasn't been easy to get used to.” She looked at him again. “You're used to shielding him from reprisals. But he doesn't want that anymore.”

Aziraphale nodded, his lips pressed together. Everything had changed after their attempted executions and he'd been busy embracing the large changes: Crowley being around all the time, going out together without secret rendez-vous locations and codes and looking over their shoulders. He hadn't adjusted to the little things.

When they reached the bookshop, the lights were on inside, casting their warm, golden glow. The Bentley, he noticed, was parked at a rakish angle, half up on the curb across the street. Crowley wasn't in it. Aziraphale looked at Anathema, who gave him an encouraging nod, and he walked up the steps into the shop. She trailed behind. As Aziraphale found Crowley, sprawled with his feet up in the back room, she slipped by and went up to the flat.

“Oh, you're back,” Crowley said with a mock lazy drawl, flipping the page of his magazine. “How was your errand?” he needled, like he didn't know.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said softly, perching on the edge of the chair across from him, not daring to move any closer. “I'm sorry. Thank you for coming. I... got in a little over my head. And I should have talked to you long before it came to that.”

Crowley sighed and sat up, pulling his feet off the bookcase they were propped on and dropping the magazine onto the couch beside him. “Angel, do you think I've never seen a demon hunter before?” he said, with an exasperation that seemed to have been chomping at the bit to get out. “I've been on the Earth for six thousand years and I've been hiding my eyes since ancient Rome. Did you think it was a fashion statement that just wouldn't die?”

“Well... no. Just...”

“They've been around for _centuries_. They're not a new invention.”

“No, of course,” Aziraphale replied, a little cowed. “I just...” He huffed a short, self-deprecating laugh. “I just didn't want you to get hurt.”

“You almost got your head cut off and you're covered in holy water.”

“Yes. It didn't quite go to plan, did it? The protecting you part.”

“I can protect myself. That's not what I need you for,” Crowley told him firmly, but his expression wasn't closed anymore. He took his glasses off and set them on top of the magazine, leaning forward towards Aziraphale. “Tell me you won't ever do that to me again,” he pressed earnestly.

Aziraphale scooted back, even though Crowley still wasn't close enough to accidentally touch him. “I promise,” he said, then got off the chair by sliding sideways, slipping awkwardly over the arm, like getting within a foot of the demon might expose him to holy water fumes or something. “I'm going to go... change into something... less fatal,” he said, gesturing towards the stairs. It made him nervous. He was afraid he'd forget himself and walk into that lean towards him and dissolve the demon in an embrace meant to comfort him.

Crowley leaned back into the sofa cushions, anger drained away, leaving a heavy weariness. “Sure. Good idea.”

Shortly after Aziraphale disappeared upstairs, Anathema came down. Crowley heard footsteps and looked over, probably assuming it was Aziraphale returning, but spotted Anathema and picked up his glasses, slipping them back on.

She wasn't sure why. He knew she'd seen his eyes at the airfield and the night they dropped all the books on the floor. She sat down across from him, in the chair vacated by the angel.

“You're not still mad at him, are you?” she asked, though suspected the question may have been a little bold. The demon was less... open than the angel.

He did raise his eyebrows at her, but he sprawled a little more casually on the sofa. Shields going up. He shrugged. “We're fine.” He considered her for a moment. “I don't like not having a _choice_,” he told her. “Do you understand that?”

“I'm not sure I do,” she said wryly. “Having choices is pretty new for me.”

“Only because that's a choice you made. Humans had choices as soon as they walked out of the Garden. Knowing the difference between Good and Evil is what gives you free will.”

“So I suppose we have _you_ to thank for that,” she replied archly.

“Oooh, haven't you heard? I'm the villain of that story.”

“I've heard versions of it.” She paused. “Is that why you did it?”

He shook his head. “I'd like to tell you that my motivations were that noble, but I'm a demon. They told me to get up there and make some trouble; I got up there and made some trouble,” he said with an expansive shrug.

She highly doubted he was as cold hearted and careless as he pretended to be; he clearly had warm feelings towards the angel. Whether that was the only reason he insisted of saving the Earth... somehow she doubted that too.

“And yet this bookstore is the actual living metaphor for free will,” she pointed out.

He looked at her quizzically, with a faint shrug of his shoulders.

“An angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other, right? Him whispering into one ear and you into the other.”

Crowley snorted, clearly amused. “I never thought of it that way.”

She looked towards the stairs. “Do you think he's okay up there?”

“I think he's more concerned about _me _being okay up there,” Crowley told her, picking up his magazine again, idling flipping the pages. “I'm sure he'll let me know when it's safe to go up without a hazmat suit.”

Anathema leaned forward. “Crowley... can I ask you something? How did you freeze those guys at the bookshop? When we were stepping outside, everyone out there was unfreezing, too. What's your _range_?”

Crowley looked up from his magazine and looked about to say something, then changed his mind, then changed his mind again. “I didn't freeze them. I stopped time,” he explained. He pretended to examine the page in the magazine. “Just like at the airfield,” he added under his breath.

It was Anathema's turn to raise her eyebrows. “You stopped time? Is... is that something all demons can do?”

“Oh. No. It's not really... a demonic power, per _se_. It's something I just... remember. From before.”

“Before?”

He put the magazine down and sighed at having to spell it out for her. “Before the sulfur highdive,” he informed her.

She blinked at him. _Oh_.

He shook out the magazine like it was a rumpled newspaper and went back to pretending to read it.

“So it's a power that _angels_ have,” she surmised.

“Not all of them,” he noted without looking up.

“Not all of them?” she pressed.

He put the magazine down again. “You know how people go on those alien abduction TV shows and talk about seeing a light and then losing time?”

She nodded.

“Most of the time, that's not aliens and they're not doing anything to the humans. That'll be angels changing something. The only ones that can do it are the ones that... build things. Help with... creation-related tasks.”

“Build things? Like what things?”

“Like... anything. Trees, mountains, rivers, stars...”

“Those jobs are still being done?”

“Well, I'm not really in the loop anymore, am I?” Crowley said a little sharply. “But it looks like it. Creation wasn't a seven days and done task. It's more a work in progress.”

“That sounds like important work.”

“They're worker bees, aren't they? Not queens.”

“No. I suppose not.” An uncertain pause and she considered the stern lines of his face and the way he kept his attention on a magazine he was clearly not reading. “Still. How does someone in that position.... end up in your position?”

“In _my_ position?” He looked at her and she could somehow feel his gaze through the glasses. “The position of living a carefree eternal life on Earth?”

“You know what I'm asking,” she admonished. “The... sulfur highdive.”

Aziraphale had shown up at the bottom of the stairs in a short sleeved undershirt and white cotton pyjama trousers just in time for 'sulfur highdive' and winced slightly. “Anathema...”

“He's the one that said it!” she protested, pointing at Crowley, who'd become fake-interested in the magazine again.

“_Crowley_...”

“You can complain about what I call it after you've _done_ it,” Crowley drawled, flipping the page.

Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose. “That's.... fair,” he conceded weakly, perching on the edge of the couch next to Crowley. “Would anyone like some tea?” he offered.

“None for me, thanks,” Anathema told him. She reached out and patted the angel's hand where it rested on his knee. “I'm going to head to bed.”

He nodded. “Thank you for your help,” Aziraphale told her.

“Uh-huh. Nighty night,” Crowley chirped. Aziraphale elbowed him. Crowley gave him a look that suggested he didn't know what he'd done to deserve that.

Anathema smiled to herself and headed upstairs.


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end (for now).

It was close to four in the morning when Anathema rolled over and then rolled over again and finally got up. She got dressed. She gathered her things and she crept down the hall. She wanted to get home, now that it was all over, but she didn't want to go without saying good-bye to Aziraphale.

She came to a closed door and opened it a crack – just enough to look in – and it was a cozy little bedroom, one corner bathed in soft lamplight, which allowed her to see the occupants of the bed. Aziraphale was very slightly propped up by a pillow, just enough to read the book he held in one hand in the light from that lamp. The other hand was absently stroking knuckles up and down the spine of the demon sprawled across his chest, head on the angel's shoulder, eyes closed, limbs every which way.

The angel looked up at the door opening and set the book down on his nightstand, waving for her to come in, then looking concerned when he saw the bag in her hand.

“Is something the matter?” he asked in a soft voice.

She looked at Crowley. “I don't want to disturb....”

He followed her gaze, then laughed lightly. “Oh, he's sound asleep, I assure you.”

“I'm just going to head out,” she told him. “But I wanted to say good-bye.”

“Already?” Aziraphale exclaimed quietly. “You don't want to wait until after breakfast?”

“No, no. I've been away long enough. I want to get home to Newt. If I take the five o'clock train, I'll be there before he goes to work. But it's... it's been a privilege, helping you out. And it's been an education. Thank you for that.”

Aziraphale's eyes opened wide. _She_ was thanking _him_? “Oh no. Thank _you_. We owe you so much. Thank you for everything.”

She smiled warmly at him. “Any time,” she promised, then pulled the door shut and made her way out of the extraordinary little world of the bookshop to go home.

It delighted her that such a place existed. That such beings existed. That there really was magic in the world beyond the skills she'd learned. That it would still be there long after she was gone.


End file.
